How to rule the music scene? Pair up. Five hot new duos who are making tunes—and making waves.

Aluna- George

Aluna- George

"It’s bedroom music," George Reid says of the sound he and bandmate Aluna Francis (together, AlunaGeorge) conceived for their debut album, Body Music—but not necessarily because it’s meant to be played in one. “You do a lot of different things in there,” adds Francis. “You might be chilling out or getting revved up; you might be sad or happy; or maybe you’re with someone. So you press Play, and it takes you on a deep journey through all of those activities.” Before crafting that journey for others, Aluna­George had one of its own that began in 2009, when Reid kept stumbling upon the MySpace page of Francis’ former band. “Her voice—I’d never heard anything like it,” he says. Unable to resist her siren song, he contacted Francis and offered to remix a track; from there, a creative, albeit strictly platonic, partnership was fused.

"It was his ability to push the boundaries of what was weird and wonderful about electronic music," says Francis of what drew her to Reid artistically. Despite the chemistry, she admits that in the beginning they created some “really unlistenable music” but soon arrived at a brand of mood-setting trip-hop—a blend of Francis’ slightly husky, childlike throwback R&B vocals that humanize Reid’s experimental electrobeats—that made their cool breakout single from last year, “Your Drums, Your Love,” run hot. Signed to Island Records since January of last year and now on tour, they’ve perfected a counterbalanced harmony of talents by trusting each other’s instincts. “It’s all pretty simple. We just go with it,” says Francis. For Reid’s part, perhaps a bit more viscerally: “There’s me trying to make a lot of ridiculous noises all the time, and Aluna turns it into a song you can’t help but whistle at the end of the day.”

Wild Belle

Wild Belle

When Chicago-born siblings Elliot, 32, and Natalie Bergman, 24, of Wild Belle finally started recording together last year after a decade of playing separately, it was, says Natalie, “like, ‘Wow.’ ” That “wow” refers to the trippy, capriciously catchy combo of Elliot’s funk-inspired rhythms and instrumental dexterity with Natalie’s lackadaisically soulful vocals over caustic lyrics. The result is Isles, their reggaefied folkish-rock debut that dropped in March, which Natalie calls “the best of both of us,” achieved only when “we’re in our own world, lost in the music.” Mind if we join?